An optimist, eh? Robert J. Sawyer talks about 'the Canadian example' and the problem with Star Wars

The Ottawa native has been called the godfather of science fiction in this country. There’s a reason: His books bleed Canadian red and white.

A recent novel was set in Winnipeg and Saskatoon, drawing on everything from a Jets playoff game to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights to the imagined election of Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi as Canada’s next prime minister.

Speaking to this newspaper after being named to the Order of Ontario – the latest in what has become a litany of honours for the bestselling author – Sawyer was quick to wave the Maple Leaf, as he discussed the significance of being a sci-fi writer from north of the border.

It’s simple, really, he says.

“I really do think Canada represents the future of the planet.”

Sawyer’s just finished watching an old episode of the original Star Trek TV series, it should probably be noted.

“The interesting thing about Canada is we are the bridge of the Enterprise, writ large,” he says, a nod to the classic sci-fi TV show and its alien science officer, Scottish engineer, black communications officer, Russian ensign and Asian helmsman.

“We have always been about inclusion and diversity in this country,” he said. “We’re only 35 million people, but that’s still a statistically relevant sampling to do an experiment to see if people from all cultures, from all faith groups, and lack of faiths as well, all gender orientations, can come together and collectively make something better than the sum of the parts.”

Sawyer doesn’t just talk a good game. He’s made a career of writing it.

But surely, this interviewer prods, sometime in the early days, some Yankee editor must have raised an eyebrow or exclaimed, ‘Enough with the Timmies and maple syrup’?

“Never once did an American editor, agent, publisher, book seller, reviewer or reader ever push back against the Canadian content in my book,” Sawyer says. “But constantly Canadians tell me, ‘You know you would sell better if you set yourself in Chicago or San Francisco.”

“It’s that classic Canadian inferiority complex.”

His career to date has validated his approach. He’s won the Hugo and Nebula awards, the industry’s big prizes. He’s published 23 books, probing such themes as the nature of evil and the existence of divinity, along with the odd alien dinosaur. Before this latest honour he was already a member of the Order of Canada.

For someone who makes their living looking into the future during these days of global uncertainty, Donald Trump’s America, Brexit and more, Sawyer is an unabashed optimist.

But that doesn’t mean he’s without critique of the present, including the state of his beloved science fiction, a term he suggests has been hijacked by blockbusters.

His genre, he says, follows in the tradition of HG Wells and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Fifty years ago, 2001: A Space Odyssey and the original Planet of the Apes movie starring Charlton Heston were made. These, he says, were works that challenged audiences on everything from political structures to race relations.

Then, less than a decade later, along came George Lucas with a blond-haired Jedi determined to rescue a princess. Star Wars’ commercial success lit the fuse for an explosion of a different kind of sci fi that was more, in Sawyer’s words, “mindless entertainment for teenage boys.”

The beauty of science fiction, Sawyer says, is that it can, under the metaphor of futuristic societies and alien cultures, play out the real morality questions of our time in a way that strips the debate of its usual knee-jerk politics.

But he acknowledges people’s appetites for that kind of challenging entertainment seems to be waning.

“Fewer and fewer people are actually engaging with science fiction,” he said. “We have a culture that is fairly anti-intellectual at the moment. It’s an echo chamber culture brought about by social media. It is a polarized culture brought about by politics.”

The popcorn version of sci-fi has fuelled the lingering disrespect for the genre, he argues.

He recently applied for a gig at an Ontario college. But the Order of Canada, Order of Ontario Nebula-winning, Hugo-winning, best-selling writer didn’t even get a call for an interview. He’s repeatedly failed to get grants.

Today’s popular science fiction is not all upbeat stuff. Think zombie and post-apocalyptic tales.

Sawyer says he’s understands where that’s coming from.

“If you look at the last 10 years and just extrapolate from that, you would certainly be inclined to say, yeah, you know, the world is going to hell in a hand basket.”

But he cites the work of fellow Canadian author Steven Pinker as a rebuttal: “By almost every statistical measure, the world is a better place today than it was at any previous time in recorded history.

“I’m convinced despite all of this that Donald Trump will be an aberration. That the Canadian example will be adopted more and more … around the globe, that we will ultimately see not just this century being a prosperous one, but that that future is going to be a bright and sunny place.”

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